The Truth About Knowledge Sharing and Distance Learning in Organizations

One thing you’ll have to consider when it comes to knowledge sharing is the ROI and what it can do for your bottom line. To us, there are two kinds of ROI: that which you can measure, and that which you can’t.

If you’re running a PPC campaign through Google Ads, it’s very easy to track your ROI, right? You can look at your spend vs. conversions and how many leads you’re bringing in for the money you’re spending. Or, if you’re using a CRM like HubSpot, you can track the success of different campaigns you’re running to see how many of them are generating revenue for you.

However, there are also things that are so intertwined with your organization and the way you work that it’s hard to imagine not having them. What’s the ROI of using spreadsheets, a presentation deck, or email? What would happen if they went down tomorrow? Pretty hard to measure, right?

Oftentimes people look for a hard, measurable ROI metric for knowledge sharing and that can be hard to define. 

However, all of the studies and use cases have shown that knowledge sharing has a positive impact on your revenue, the alignment of your team, creating a company culture, a competitive advantage, streamlining processes, and more.

Don’t Be Discouraged!

Let’s face it: if you’re going to try to create a knowledge sharing culture in your organization from scratch, you’re going to face some resistance

But that doesn’t mean you should be discouraged or frustrated when you get pushback from employees. There is always resistance to change and a fear of the unknown when it comes to implementing new things. It happened with everything that we use today: LinkedIn, video conferencing, even email.

However, what’s really behind the resistance to knowledge sharing, more than anything, is fear of rejection. People are thinking, “What if I'm sharing things that aren’t compelling and I look like an idiot?” We all fear looking ridiculous in front of our colleagues and peers, and being on video can be an especially vulnerable position.

That’s why it’s important to find early adopters who learn quickly, embrace the virtues of knowledge sharing, and will encourage their peers to follow suit. If multiple people on the Sales team is making these videos, then any individual will feel less afraid of the idea of being the next in line to share their tips and tricks for success.

And there's a competition there, right? The salespeople want to succeed, but sometimes they don't want to give away all their secrets because it's a competition with each other. That’s why you've got to build a culture within the organization to have everybody embrace it and working together, not in silos – or even worse, against each other. 

It's about the culture and setting the expectations of the benefits of sharing with each other and looking at the common good of everybody as opposed to the individual. And when that happens across all departments, your organization will thrive.

Download our free guide, 100+ Prompts to Drive Knowledge Sharing through Video, to get 100+ ideas, questions, and prompts to help your team deliver important, authentic, and amazing content that drives your business forward!